"Rogue" U.S. General Arrested for Ignoring 9/11 Bengzahi Stand-Down Order

dont quote me on this but what i THINK i rember being the case was they were saved by a russian ship(at least thats who rescued them after the ship
was shot up) and as this was happening in the middle of the cold war it kinda showed the unity of naval forces even if enemys,when the sea is the
enemy all saliors are on the same team

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
OMG..... Okay..I thought I'd heard everything on this story. He was outright ARRESTED? For refusing to ignore the cries for help...and deliberately
leave those men to die?! He was actually ARRESTED ON THE SPOT like a bad friggen movie?!

(chomps a carrot so hard it sounds like wood breaking)

edit on 30-10-2012 by Wrabbit2000 because: (no reason given)

Disobeying orders from a superior officer is grounds for arrest, a dishonorable discharge, and possibly treason.

So you can be arrested for "just following orders" and you can be arrested for not following orders?
Whats one to do?

Has anyone read the article to know that whatever side you are on He was not arrested. He was relieved of command. I repeat he was not arrested. The
arrest part was only used to grab your attention. The OP should be ashamed. Political trolls. Nov 6th can not come soon enough. This site is being
over run by crazies.

Used to happen quite often when I was in Afghanistan; they'd set up a mortar tube, launch two or three rounds and haul ass. For the most part, they
don't have or don't know how to use mortar sights. It was a rarity that they hit anything that they were aiming at. Usually, their rounds would hit
unoccupied areas of the FOB, fall short, or fly over. Don't know if that's what goes on in Benghazi.

*shrugs* 4 pages of nothing.. All we know so far is he is going into rotational retirment. The rest of this is nothing other then pure speculation
brought to us by the best of right wing blogs. Until some facts hit the page, i dont have much to be bothered with on this one.

Actually, a T-43 could easily have made a landing at that airport. The problem was that the charts that were on board were several years old and
hadn't been updated. They flew the approach that was on the charts, which put them several degrees of course, which was multiplied over the course of
the approach, and put them on a line with the mountains around the airport they were heading for, among other errors.

The instrument approach flown by the CT-43 aircrew should not have been flown, the board concluded. Investigators said wing leaders failed to
comply with directives requiring prior review of instrument approach procedures not approved by DoD.

"Prior to 1994, non-DoD approaches were routinely flown by the Air Force," Coolidge said. "A change in the directive in 1994 required major commands
to review non-DoD approaches such as the procedure for Dubrovnik for their accuracy and reliability prior to their use. The 86th Airlift Wing
routinely went into many airfields in Eastern Europe that do not have the DoD-approved approaches."

The wing requested a waiver to continue flying non-DoD approaches at European airports without review, Coolidge said. While awaiting a formal reply to
the waiver request, U.S. Air Force Europe officials told wing leaders they could continue to fly the approaches. In January 1996, however,
Headquarters, U.S. Air Force, denied the waiver request, and U.S. Air Force Europe withdrew their permission to fly the approaches.

But "the wing chose to continue using non-DoD approaches," Coolidge said. "Based on a history of using the approaches for years, the wing leaders
erroneously believed the approach procedures to be safe. The day after the accident the wing rescinded the aircrew authorization to fly non-DoD
approaches."

Prior to public release of the report, the 17th Air Force commander relieved the three top 86th Airlift Wing officers due to the investigation,
according to Air Force officials.

Aircrew errors also contributed to the crash, investigators reported. During mission planning the crew failed to note the Dubrovnik approach
required two automatic direction finders. The CT-43 had only one. An error in planning the route added 15 minutes to the planned flight time and may
have caused the crew to rush the approach.

According to the report, the pilots did not properly configure the aircraft for landing before starting the final approach. They came in 80 knots
above final approach speed, without clearance from the tower. The rushed approach, late configuration and a radio call from a pilot on the ground
distracted the crew from adequately monitoring the final approach, which proved to be nine degrees left of the correct course, Coolidge said.

The pilots also failed to identify the missed approach point. If they were unable to see the runway at that point, they should have executed a missed
approach. If they had done so, they would have turned away into a holding pattern and would not have hit the mountain, which was more than a mile past
the missed approach point.

An improperly designed instrument approach for Dubrovnik also contributed to the crash, according to the report.

Weather was not found to be a substantial contributing factor in the crash, the board reported, even though weather conditions required the crew to do
an instrument approach.

Has anyone read the article to know that whatever side you are on He was not arrested. He was relieved of command. I repeat he was not arrested. The
arrest part was only used to grab your attention. The OP should be ashamed. Political trolls. Nov 6th can not come soon enough. This site is being
over run by crazies.

This is a conspiracy website, not a news site. Attention grabbing headlines are the norm.
Having said that, the OP was not a "conspiracy theory" but facts as they have been reported
by main stream media sources, namely the Washington Times.

The OP also include the term "9/11" and yes that was to grab attention... but the fact is this
did happen on 9/11 and I maintain the term "arrested" is equally as valid. You choose to see
the OP as a "crazy political trolling" when all I did was ask one simple question and make one
simple observation. Here they are again:

A) Is a General losing his job for trying to save the Americans besieged in Benghazi?
B) Sounds like the story line for Last Resort (the new TV series on ABC)

Tell me again, what exactly should I feel ashamed of ???

The source I linked to reads:

Within 30 seconds to a minute after making the move to respond, his second in command apprehended General Ham and told him that he was now relieved of
his command.

I read "apprehended" as arrest. I could be wrong, mistaken, or misinformed
but that is why I posted this to ATS, so we could all get to the bottom of this.

To my mind, being arrested means you are not free to leave (like when the
police detain you). That arrest may only last a few moments but in this case
its hard for me see how a General being relieved of his command after he
disregarded a direct order from the White House is not a proper use of
that term. Again, I could be wrong, so you decide for yourself.

Apparently General Ham is not the only member of the armed forces who
attempted to respond and who has been relieved of his command.

"The Navy said Saturday it is replacing the admiral in command of an aircraft carrier strike group in the Middle East, pending the outcome of an
internal investigation into undisclosed allegations of inappropriate judgment.

Inappropriate judgment eh? Like, perhaps, deciding that he was going to go do his job when our people were under attack through an act of war on U.S.
soil by known belligerents and terrorist? There isn't much that’s “inappropriate” in my view under such circumstances in terms of rapid
response, but the CIC (that would be Obama) apparently sees things differently.

Under the UCMJ, any order that will harm soldiers etc can legally be ignored. However, it would still need to be defended in a military court. You get
arrested and then you defend your actions, however in this case no one want to see that happen because it would get a lot of bad press... you can bet
this will fade into obscurity as do all stories about negative events participated in by the top brass.

Just remember, our Government (the Marxist Obama administration) lied to us directly, "eyeball to eyeball", for an extended period of time. They
blamed a YouTube video when we know, without having to look at rumors, that communication where taking place that made it clear that NIGHT it was an
organized attack and never a spontaneous event by unruly protesters. The big question is why the stand down order given?

Imagine, pre-9/11/12, that you were responsible for arranging the defense of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Would you have considered American
interests and personnel best protected by bringing in a local security outfit called the February 17 Martyrs Brigade?

Question: If the Federal government has been caught lying to the American people about Pearl Harbor, 9/11, Korea, Vietnam, the Gary Frances Powers U-2
shoot-down over Russia, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Watergate break-in, the October Surprise, the Iran-Contra
scandal, the BCCI scandal, the invasion of Iraq, and the hunt for al Qaeda in Afghanistan -- what on earth would cause any thinking American to
blindly believe that the Federal government is not lying through its teeth right now about running arms to al Qaeda in Libya and Syria?

Originally posted by Resurected
*shrugs* 4 pages of nothing.. All we know so far is he is going into rotational retirment. The rest of this is nothing other then pure speculation
brought to us by the best of right wing blogs. Until some facts hit the page, i dont have much to be bothered with on this one.

Here are some facts for you: The fighting at the CIA annex went on for more than four hours -- enough time for any planes based in Sigonella Air base,
just 480 miles away, to arrive. When question about this, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon that there was not a clear
enough picture of what was occurring on the ground in Benghazi to send help.

This notion that we don’t send our forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on is patently absurd and false. Simply said, it’s a
lie. We deploy Army Rangers to take control of air fields and landing zones in potentially hostile environments, for which we do not know all of the
desired information; we deploy Marine infantry into situations of potentially unknown threats all of the time all over the globe; but when it comes to
protecting our own forces such as those deployed in Benghazi, the excuse is made that we didn't have enough intelligence.

According to sources on the ground during the attack, the special operator on the roof of the CIA annex had visual contact and a laser pointing at the
Libyan mortar team that was targeting the CIA annex. The operators were calling in coordinates of where the Libyan forces were firing from.

Such an act never takes place unless there are assets in the air able to hit what’s been designated as the target and everyone else in the area can
see the emission of energy used to “paint” the target. We therefore know, assuming the reports of that “painting” are accurate, that some
form of aerial fire support was available and was intentionally not used.

The general did the right thing. Disobeying orders to save lives is an applaudible action. The man should get a medal of honor for trying to fulfill
his duty to protect his countrymen. If anyone needs to be arrested it is the U.S. government, starting with Barack Obama for perpetrating acts of
terrorism and funding terrorism on sovereign nations. Trials for treason need to be held for the highest levels of government with maximum penalty for
conviction.

Imagine for a second...The CIA got caught with their pants down in an illegal operation of some kind. The SEALS there would be ok if caught as a
prisoner and interrogated. They would go to the death with their information. An Ambassador? Probably not. I'm not saying I agree with the no action
in that case. But someone isn't telling the entire story of what happened. The only thing that comes to mind is information getting into the wrong
hands. Still no excuse, and General Ham should be considered heroic if he in fact tried to help. However, a general disobeying orders is not
acceptable either. We don't know what the order was. Yes I was military for six years. But the order could have been, "Let's hang on a sec and see
where this is going" during the first 15 minutes of the attacks. Who's to say that after an hour or so the general decided not to wait for an order
anymore and help? We just don't know.

Until the truth comes out, we won't know what really happened that night.

There are a couple of questions I want answered before jumping to any conclusions about General Ham. First, how long has he been in command of
AFRICOM? A quick wikipedia search says since March of 2011. Eighteen months seems like a shorter than normal tour. General Ham turned 60 in February
so he's still a couple of years short of mandatory retirement age. He had enlisted time before his commissioning in June 1976 so he had 36 years of
service as an officer plus I'd assume at least two as an enlisted person. I couldn't find any mandatory retirement after years of service for the
Army only a waiverable mandatory retirement age of 62. So, is an eighteen month stint as commander of a major command normal or not? Seems to me like
most of these commands last at least two years, and General Ham's predecessor held the command three and a half years.

Two flag officers being canned in the same geographic area in a short time span does seem incredibly unusual doesn't it. Could anyone repeat the
name of the Navy Admiral relieved recently as well? I couldn't find it with the awesome search function here.

Something smells about this change of command and I'm not quite sure what to think of it yet. I've heard that the default orders for a major command
when notified of a threat against an embassy is to initiate action. If that is true someone had to give Ham and AFRICOM the stand down order. It's
also my understanding that these major commands answer only to the Secretary of Defense and POTUS.

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